Obliviate
by 2DaughtersOfAthena
Summary: Draco and Hermione had it all, but he kept a secret from her to protect her. Short fic, AU. Complete.
1. Chapter 1

**Hey! So, I started writing this the day before yesterday for procrastination, and it has ended up being one of those really important things that you write. And here we are, me having written lots every day and having just finished the final part tonight. It's a little different from usual.**

 **This is going to be in four parts, and I hope you enjoy this!**

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 ** _Hermione_**

Dating Draco Malfoy. One of the less believable things I've done in my life, even with that crazy Wizard War a few years back. I'm never quite sure how it all happened. One day he wasn't in my life, the next he seemed to be there every second, with his sarcastic remarks not quite hitting the hurtful button anymore. Instead he just seemed… Tame. One day he wasn't in the office, the next he was waiting in the elevator with me, and walking just as purposefully towards the Magical Relations offices, and dumping his own messenger bag onto the empty desk next to mine. In the exact place where I could not ignore him. He set up a quill, two ink bottles, and what honestly looked like a copy of the quibbler, and turned to face me.

 _Go on, ask_ , he seemed to be determined to demand. I raised an eyebrow at him instead, and opened the drawers for the files in my desk, beginning to rifle through them. He hauled out his own bumf of paper and remained staring at me for the next thirty seconds.

"Nice to meet you. I'm Draco Malfoy, I like reading, and I am a hard worker. What's your name?" he asked, breaking through the silence. Complex. What is he on?

"Hermione Granger. Hard worker, love reading, and tend to work alone."

"You didn't work alone in the war."

"That's different." I paused, thinking. "I saw your case file. The Bulgarians weren't impressed, but you did a good thing."

"How did you get clearance for that?"

"I'm high security level."

"So, you're important."

"Not important enough to warrant actual change," I quipped finally.

He smirked, muttered a smiling _okay_ and went back to his papers. I churn through the next ten pages of parchment, analysing the data quickly and making several notes in red ink along the margin about things that should be changed for the new Ethiopian Treaty. 'Offer them more goats' was not a good enough improvement from the last things I suggested, so I crossed it out. Beside me, Malfoy uttered a single _harsh_ causing my annoyance at him to flare up suddenly.

"Sorry, what did you say?"

"Maybe we should offer them more goats, that's all," he replied, shrugging. I scowled.

The days pass a little like this for a long enough time. Banter-filled mornings, lunchtimes, afternoons, and long evenings when things go wrong during the day. One instance in which Malfoy picked up Chinese Takeout and wine while we sorted through the latest trouble in Hungary. He bought red, which is always a mistake for me in particular. Sifting through the latest news stories, we found humour in everything, and migrated to the floor of the small room.

It's always difficult to remember what happened next. It being a Thursday, we couldn't leave to sleep in the next day, so intended to just wait out the drama of the problem. (The Hungarian Minister of Magic decided he wanted to transport seven Hungarian Horntail's to be representatives of Hungary in the Quidditch World Cup, and obviously not many others were in agreement with him.)

I was slumped against the wall, wine glass tumbling back against my chest, and Malfoy was writing a letter, balanced upon his pile of folders he left in the office after the first month of arriving. He took a bite of his cold chicken while I took a prawn cracker from out under his nose. I'm not sure whether he was laughing at me or him at this stage. I laughed along with him, anyhow.

We played a game called twenty-one questions. Surprisingly something he hadn't heard of it, it being a muggle thing, usually belonging in a world filled with silly dramas and not magical ones.

I told him that too, and yet we played.

Favourite colours, films, and other questions which were more open than others. Ones about the war, and about family, and things which are fuelled by the red wine that we could no longer escape in our states, occasionally scratching out suggestions onto the work, but not really paying attention anymore.

We worked through the night.

At two in the morning, I was feeling that horrible thing called attraction, and towards Draco Malfoy. His smiles seemed softer – he was probably just drunk – and his remarks seemed even more less offensive than they had been as of late. His hair was funny, and his eyes were so blue that they shocked me every so often, when I asked him about the nature of other animals in Hungary, and when he asked me whether we should arrange a meeting with Magical Sports. I was reminded of him playing quidditch – something I hadn't been interested in up until that point. I wasn't reminded of how much of an arse he could be, but what a brilliant man he had become.

It was hot in the office, and the lights were off. His leg nudged my own by accident as he fell a little bit further into light sleep. I poked him awake again, as his quill slipped further down the parchment. He smiled blearily at me.

At three in the morning, we had both finished another glass of wine, and broken out some popcorn from my drawer for emergencies.

"I really think everyone would agree to just the one Horntail," Draco mused.

"You're still on that? I'm working on the UN agreement," I yawned.

"Someone tired?"

"Maybe," I muttered, smirking at him. "One Horntail is more reasonable than seven, that is true." He smiled back at me, sipping at his nearly empty wineglass. "I should be in bed," I laughed. He didn't reply to that one, brushing my arm as he reached around me for a crinkled and slightly chewy prawn cracker. It crunched into our small silence. Gross.

At three-thirty I was staring at him again. He looked strange when he read, in a good way. His brows furrowed when he concentrated, and as he asked me to translate a rune used by the Swedish Head of Games Committee.

"Broomstick," I translated.

"That does make sense," he conceded.

"What's the sentence?"

"The keeper has a new broomstick. For a moment there, I was honestly convinced it said 'chalice', and that would make no sense." I laughed, leaning closer to glance over the script. "It looks similar, right?" he asked, turning to face me.

Suddenly our noses are almost touching and I am stuck halfway between moving in and moving very far away at a very quick pace. But Draco isn't moving away either.

Slowly, experimentally, we both move closer, our noses bumping lightly, and lips brushing against each other. For a moment, it's not wrong. Then for longer than a moment, it's wonderful. It's clear that the attraction is reciprocated, which feels good. It feels right. But then we stop, as Malfoy pulled away from me.

"We need to finish this," he murmured, more quietly than ever.

"Okay," I replied, because I was convincing myself I was too drunk at this point to care whether he wanted to kiss me or not.

At five in the morning we sent everything off.

Seven owls, and three large letters to the post office.

That's everything I tried to remember.

Three, barely endurable, weeks later, Draco Malfoy asked me out.

"Let's go out," he said. Not in any particular way. He just said it. Maybe a suggestion. "But not Chinese. That was nice, but too much takeout and I'll get bored of one of the greatest muggle things."

"When, where, and why?" I didn't turn to face him, instead working my way through a proposal to the Minister of Magic, Kingsley Shacklebolt.

"Friday night, a restaurant, and because I like you."

"Okay."

"Really?" He sounded surprised.

"Yes."

Friday night, he picked me up from my apartment in the city, smiling a little too awkwardly for my liking, but appearing to be pleasant enough. I donned my jacket and lock the door. When he started walking I noticed a limp he'd got since earlier in the week.

"What happened to your leg?" I asked, politely enough. He paused.

"Oh, I fell over the over day," he replied once he seemed to get the other part of his brain back into gear. I frowned back at him but let it go.

The night passed in a much better way than our drunken evening had, with Draco being courteous, and neither of us having to do work in between bites of meal and sips of wine – white this time, so I could keep my head a little more – and asking even more questions than the previous night. At the end of the meal, we split the bill – because I hate to have it any other way – and he walked me back through the twilit streets. At some point, he started holding my hand, and it made me feel nervous, but a good kind of nervous.

I didn't invite him inside on the first date, or the second, or third. By the fourth, I was invested in him. By this, I mean that I felt the attraction on a whole different level. Seeing him in the office. Getting an owl or memo from him. Anything which reminded me of him. It all made my tummy churn.

He was invited to brunch with my parents after the third month of us dating. When he arrived, he was limping again, and his smile wasn't quite as brilliant as it usually was, at least for the first half an hour. After that, he was joking with my father, and politely explaining his mother's loving and stranger antics to my mother, and holding my hand beneath the table. After ten minutes, I began to notice other things about him and the way he was holding himself. He wasn't sitting upright, and he was tense.

"What's wrong?" I asked him as we were leaving.

"It's nothing," and he pecked me lightly on the cheek, hugging my mother and shaking hands with my father in the ultimate sense of formality. It was sweet, but I was worried still. We held hands walking around with my parents until it was time to leave. Then we returned to my flat. I asked him to move in with me, and he agreed, albeit less enthusiastically than I originally imagined. But he agreed, nonetheless.

Two weeks later, and my apartment was filled with boxes of our things. We laughed and smiled on that day, relishing in the joys of finally being able to be together for long into the night, and well into the next day. We managed to make it work while at the Ministry as well, signing disclosure contracts which announced we had moved in together We were consummate professionals, as well as unashamed lovers. It was almost complete bliss. Draco and I shared everything together, except one thing.

One night he came home bruised and bleeding and far less confident that he ever was.

"Hey, Hermione, do you have any of those frozen peas?" he called through to the lounge, his voice nasally from the bleeding nose.

"Oh my _god_ , what happened to you?" I cried out, rushing to the freezer and grabbing a roll of kitchen towels to try and stem the blood flow dribbling over his pale hands.

"It's nothing. Don't worry about it. Just some idiot," he remarked casually, but flinched away when I moved the peas towards his face. I frowned, entirely uncertain. "Hermione, I'm alright. I'm here with you. Everything is good." And he smiled through the blood, as if he really did mean it.

"I'm serious Draco, what happened?"

"I just got in a fight I wasn't meant to be in," he answered easily, wincing. "You know, drunk people can't throw punches." He laughed unsuccessfully.

Three days later it happened again, but he didn't tell me. I saw the bloody kitchen towels in the bin, and I noticed how his eye was yellowing very slightly, different from the bruises he had from the other night.

"Who's doing this to you?" I interrogated.

"Who's doing what?" he replied, completely innocently.

The next evening, he told me that he loves me, and that it's important that I know that, no matter what. I wasn't sure whether I should be scared, but I was worried for him no matter what. I loved him too. We kissed lightly and settled down to watch Britain's Got Talent, with me not knowing how close I should get without hurting him. It seemed impossible that he wasn't keeping something from me, but at the same time I couldn't believe it.

Life continued in almost the same was as before for an entire year. Draco and I were in love, and it was wonderful to be so free with someone. Our jobs were leading us all over the globe, together, and our families had even met. There was barely any hostility in our friendship groups.

We had a perfect day around Autumn time, nearing winter.

Pancakes for breakfast. Morning watching television. Then out to see a bit of the beautiful corners of the city we have both grown to love even more than before. The sky was a clear, pastel blue, and it was cold enough to wear a woollen hat and scarf. Draco wore his Slytherin colours, and I opted for a scarf my mother had bought me for Christmas the previous year. We laughed, ate dessert in the middle of the day, and then took Chinese takeout back to our apartment, with some red wine and popcorn. Like the very first night we connected, those many months ago.

He told me that he loved me, again. Sat beside me on the sofa, he had put down his wineglass. An expression had come over him. Something more vulnerable than anything I had seen before. I brushed the hair out of his face and kissed him lightly on the lips, thanking him for the most perfect day I'd had. He touched my nose with his and then he said something. What was it that he said?

I think he said he was sorry. Why?

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 **Thanks for reading!**


	2. Chapter 2

**And here is the second instalment! Enjoy!**

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Dating Hermione Granger. Unpredicted, unprecedented, and unbelievable.

I hadn't had to interview for the job in Magical Relations, but they were so desperate that they hired me the first opportunity they had. A completely ridiculous chance episode of life. No matter, it happened. And there I was, hauling that ridiculous messenger bag to my ridiculous new job with my ridiculous blonde hair. Standing out like a sore thumb.

Trying to avoid eye contact with too many people, I was silent in the elevator to the floor. The problem was that no one knew what I had done during the war, and I was being punished. So, the key aim here was to just do my job, out of the way of society too much, and to just have a life that belonged to someone who had been on the light side. My key aim for the rest of my life was to avoid being bullied for the remainder of it, and to live out my life the way I would have done if I was anything but a Malfoy.

Bushy-haired and ignoring me, Hermione Granger sat in the desk beside me. I decided to introduce myself to her as if I was new. That way, maybe I can at least get a clean slate with her. If it has to be anyone.

"Nice to meet you. I'm Draco Malfoy, I like reader, and I am a hard worker. What's your name?" I asked, breaking out silence for the first time. And absolutely hoping that we can leave my terrible family out of all of this.

"Hermione Granger. Hard worker, love reading, and tend to work alone." _Touché._

"You didn't work alone in the war."

"That's different." She paused. In what way was it different? "I saw your case file. The Bulgarians weren't impressed, but you did a good thing."

My entire body clenches for a moment, thinking back to that day. Working my way through their ranks, learning everything, and finally being able to be a part of taking down the Dark Lord. Voldemort. The only problem was that the whole case was confidential.

"How did you get clearance for that?" I asked, swallowing.

"I'm high security level."

"So, you're important."

"Not important enough to warrant actual change," she quipped back at me.

I smiled at her. She was smart. Really smart. She'd always been clever throughout Hogwarts, but it was absolutely clear then that she was more than book smart. Maybe the war had changed her. The war had changed all of us, really. Most people it was a good change, but a lot of people faced even worse after the horrors of the war.

When I left work that very first day, I met the first of my challenges in this new world.

"Stay away from Granger," someone muttered to me as they smacked their shoulder into my own. I ignored them, as I knew I would have to. The Minister warned me of this, and that I wouldn't be able to reveal my taking part in the light side of the war. I had accepted it. And I just needed to ignore the abuse.

However, the abuse kept coming.

Letters, curses, and cruel words in between the days annoyed me. I had never been one to get particularly lonely, so it didn't bother me that I sat with no one at lunch. It didn't bother me that no one asked me to get drinks after work. I didn't want to, anyway. Alas, one morning, a week after I first started the job, I returned to my desk early to do paperwork, seeing Granger there, eating her pathetic excuse for a salad by herself, and working avidly through her allotted lunch-hour.

"What are you doing?" I asked. She looked up, then back down at the parchment sitting beneath her lunchbox.

"Working," she mumbled through the lettuce.

"Fine," I sighed back, pulling out my own bagel and setting it on top the desk. "I need you to sign some things for me."

"Hand them over," she replied easily, not looking at me still.

I admit, it stung a little, but I did it anyway. It was possibly the weirdest thing to want a friend in Hermione Granger. But there I was, with the only person who didn't appear to jeer at me in every other room. I suspect anyone who had read my case didn't care whether I had done the war any good. To them, I was still a Malfoy. Yet, Granger had a shred more morality and common-sense than the most of them.

After the paper work she asked me questions about Bulgaria, and what it was like to be undercover. I figured she was doing it to appease me somehow, as I'd heard the stories of the dragon and Gringotts, and of everything she had done during the war. I felt something though, which was a something more than the nothing I'd been feeling towards everyone recently.

When the day was ended, I walked out of the Ministry, feeling admittedly lighter than I had done. That lasted all of ten seconds, when someone threw a stone at me. I was never sure where they picked it up from, but it hit me on the shoulder. Still, I ignored this, went home, and slept early that night.

Sometime following this event came the pivotal moment.

"You need to complete this paper work before the post goes tomorrow morning."

 _Thank you, Miranda._ Bitch.

"Oh my god," Hermione muttered. "There has to be at least two hundred sheets of parchment here."

"We'll stay late," I suggested. "I'll get Chinese. You said it was your favourite."

"I did."

She gave me a look then, one that seemed to know I had been paying attention to her endless stories about her wonderfully mundane muggle childhood. So, when nearly everyone had left the office and Hermione was comfortably rifling through the pages of a news sheet to find some way to report the Ethiopian incidents to the muggle international government, I went to Tesco with my plain muggle money and bought red wine to go with the takeout. Red's always been my favourite. Mainly because my parents prefer white, but there you go.

We played a wonderfully ludicrous game called twenty-one questions. It was fascinating in a stupid sort of way. Talking about the boring stuff that no one ever finds out about each other anymore; what they like, what they dislike, and the little things that go on inside their minds. Eventually, we get to the heavier stuff. The war, and how the world all fell in like some sort of cavern.

At one in the morning, I was definitively attracted to her. The curse of red wine had befallen me, and I was too tipsy to ignore that pull I felt towards her. So, I brushed my leg against hers, half to make sure she was asleep, and half because I wanted to. I didn't want to be offensive, and I didn't want to be that alone all of a sudden. But I was so tired from the day, and the weeks I'd spent so far being under constant scrutiny abuse from what felt like everyone I had ever known.

At two in the morning we were halfway done.

At three she brought out some cheeky popcorn from her desk drawer.

I remember saying something about Horntails, and that there was a problem with the Hungarian Minister for Magic that we had to deal with.

At three-thirty she was looking at me. I could feel it, and I was exhausted.

I was reading the runes and trying to work out this one word, but my eyes just weren't working as well as they normally did. She translated, and suddenly her face was so close and so impossibly just there, within reach. In the moment, I felt something a little bit more than attraction, our noses brushed, and then we were kissing.

The next three weeks were hell. I got jumped seven times, and avoided coming into work for several of the days, wanting to see Hermione but knowing that if anyone sees me I'll just come in with more bruises the next day. And then she'd ask questions. So, I tried to work at home as often as I could, which was made difficult by my less-than-ideal living situation of 'my parents pathetically empty manor house', filled with constant distractions. But then, as soon as I was healed properly, and not aching because of my abysmal healing spells, I saw her at the desk, glancing around at the rest of the world. I asked her out. She said yes, which shocked me.

"Stay away from Granger," was punctuated with me being pushed down some stairs as I left the office that day, late after Hermione had disappeared to see her parents. Having no one to fix me, and being far too embarrassed to go to the hospital, I apparated poorly back to the manor and tried to siphon off any of the pain. The next day I took painkillers for the first time.

It made me appreciate that muggles have it hard.

Still, I took Hermione on the date. I wasn't in pain enough to be persuaded otherwise. She was the little sparkle in my otherwise dead and dull life. No way I was giving that up if I was just going to be pushed down the stairs every once in a while.

On our fourth date, she invited me inside her apartment for 'coffee'. Neither of us are massive fans of coffee, so we went straight for the proverbial dessert. It was wonderful. That's all I can really say about it. She didn't notice my flinching from the light brush on my stomach, where the day previously I had been punched repeatedly – I got better at hiding the bruises – and she didn't notice the scar on my lower back where someone had come up behind me with a knife.

"Stop dating Granger," one voiced told me.

"We'll just keep hurting you," another said.

"You're a piece of shit, Malfoy," someone else intoned.

I ignored them.

I didn't want to appeal to the Minister to release my case file any earlier, because that would seem like I couldn't handle it. And I was handling it, as far as I was concerned. The Minister didn't need to be dealing with me and my shortcomings. Plus, it was nothing short of unsafe to release the sensitive information until further notice.

Hermione invited me out to brunch with her parents. I did the good thing; shook hands, gave hugs, smiled alone with their conversation. They were lovely people, but there was so much running through my mind. I understood why the people were trying to hurt me, but they surely can't do it forever? And they'd know I'm a wizard, so the wounds would heal. But it's just relentless.

"What's wrong?" Hermione asked me as we left. Maybe I hadn't smiled enough.

"It's nothing," I replied, giving her a toothy grin.

Later that night she asked me to move in with her. I agreed, as I would have done anyway. At this point I was completely and irrevocably in love with her. The problem was that we would have to sign a disclosure form if were to move in together. Then everything would be even more in the open. But still, I agreed.

It took me a whole weekend to pack up everything I wanted from the manor. Just the two days to run around the house, glancing over the many objects that I didn't want, and then choosing only those really important to remain with me for what should have been the rest of my adult life. Hermione cooked up pasta and pesto with frozen peas while I unpacked around her, and we relished in the joy of being able to spend this much more time together.

One night, on my way back the apartment, someone caught me completely off-guard. For the first time, it wasn't near work and it was near to her. Near to our apartment.

"I told you to keep away from her." The guy came out of the shadows, wearing a muggle hoodie to hide his face. Coward. I didn't respond. "And yet here you are, dirty and returning to your little bitch." My anger flared. Neither was I dirty nor returning to a bitch. "You're thick, Malfoy. Thinking you could just get back in on the good side. Thinking you could just join and all would be forgotten."

"You were there when he killed my parents, and my brother," choked one voice.

"Your father hurt my little sister." The voice paused. "She was only nine."

The best, and only thing, I could do was to say _sorry_.

Of course, they beat me up until I was bleeding and the dark shade of the night sky.

Hermione cried when I stumbled in, asking for peas. I meant to stay relaxed about it and not say a word, and just say that I fell. However, it was far too obvious that time that something had gone wrong. I told her that I love her, and that everything will be alright. Everything was okay whilst I was with her. No one could get me in the apartment.

"I love you," I said. "So much. And it is so important that you know that." Because it was so important. So, important that she knew that she was just about everything that meant something at that point in life.

"I love you too," she replied, kissing me on the corner of my mouth to avoid the cuts. My heart and my chest and my body filled with happiness. And, for one whole year, it was the same.

For this one, wonderful, year, we travelled with our jobs, and managed to remain completely civil. Our families met – rather, I met the rest of her family – and our friends didn't hate each other, though there remained some animosity. I thought the abuse had gone, as it had turned to mere glares in the street and no more punching their way through my organs.

Then my own personal pivotal moment.

"Stay away from Granger or she'll be the one going headfirst down the stairs every day."

I told him to let me have one final day.

Hermione and I had a beautiful day in the late Autumn. Every corner he was there, waiting for me to mess up and for him to be able to make a move on her if I did something wrong. By my understanding, he wanted to go after her to get at me.

We had Chinese takeout for dinner, with red wine and popcorn, like those many months ago.

I sat down on the sofa beside her and just looked at her. Perfect, unbelievable Hermione Granger. Unpredicted, and unprecedented, and ultimately wonderful.

"I love you," I told her. "And I am so, so sorry. I can't let them hurt you, though."

She looked at me, confused.

" _Obliviate_."


	3. Chapter 3

**Final instalment tomorrow everyone!**

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 _"_ _Dear Hermione,_

 _I am so sorry_

 _DM"_

I stare at the note, my mind blank. What the hell is this?

 **0-0-0-0**


	4. Chapter 4

**The final instalment! I have an exam tomorrow, so this was in limited time, but I feel happy with it. I hope you all enjoy the conclusion!**

 **0-0-0-0**

"Minister, I spoke to President Trump the other day. He requested magic so I had to obliviate him."

"How are we going to get him to trust us now when we need something?"

"I'll speak to the American Ministers and see what they say, but I don't think there's any chance he will be able to stomach an English woman telling him that there are wizards and witches," I inform Kinsley Shacklebolt, crossing my arms across my chest in our completely casual meeting. I'm still half-fangirling over the fact that I have casual meetings with Kingsley, but I will never not be a professional.

"Alright. Maybe have Dickens work on a draft with you. He's excellent with words."

"And their Ministers do take surprisingly well to him," I remark, laughing lightly.

"He's a handsome an intelligent man. What's not to like," Kingsley chuckles. "Is there anything else you meant to talk to me about today?"

"The Bulgarian Case File, with Draco Malfoy. It's being released today."

"That's correct."

"I just wanted to know what your thoughts were," I ask, feeling a tightness in my chest for some reason. I continue. "It's going to change a lot of people's minds about him. How do you want me to proceed? He still works at the Ministry."

"It will be available to everyone from this morning," Kingsley murmured, thinking. "The article won't come out until Thursday, and non-Ministry workers will be able to access it from next Monday." Not particularly helpful. I frown at him. "Proceed with caution, and remember that complaints people have are not yours to deal with." He pauses, then laughs. "At least, as long as they're not governmental."

I smile back at him.

When I get back to the office I pull out my purse, and the note I slipped inside it almost six months ago.

 _"_ _Dear Hermione,_

 _I am so sorry_

 _DM"_

Draco Malfoy. It has to be. I don't know anyone else who has those initials. I've tried to think of who it could, if not him. But there it is. And when I think of him, my whole body was made tense. And here we are, on the day that his papers get released out into the Ministry, and a manner of days before the Prophet will release the information.

What is he sorry for?

We stopped working together around six months ago after he transferred to a different department, and I haven't seen him since. The note was in my apartment one evening, and I didn't get to question him about it because he was gone. For six months, I have not seen a flash of the white hair, even though I know others have seen him. It's maddening. It's like he has completely disappeared, and I have no idea why it bothers me so much.

The articles come out on the Thursday, as expected. It's nothing like what I expected, despite having reviewed the case for the last two and a half years.

 _Draco Malfoy, belonging to the previously-acclaimed Death Eater family, has now been outed as a good person, which may cause you to consider throwing this very paper aside. However, we are here to tell you the full extent of everything he did during the war, and how this affected us over here._

 _While Draco's parents were standing aside with Voldemort claiming new victims every hour, he was sent on his own mission to tackle the global expanse of the Dark Lord's power. Through great personal barriers, and with great risk to himself and his family, the Malfoy heir took down various corrupt governments and even managed to reduce the Death Eater Army in Bulgaria by half._

 _The public case file will be released on Monday, as is every other piece of evidence available to the public after the war. This story continues on page seven._

Horribly, the article makes me cry. I can't even explain why.

When the case opens to the public the following Monday, the waves of people are catastrophic. Some demanding evidence, others merely completely confused about all of it. And still, I haven't seen Draco.

"What's got you so rattled?" Dickens asks one morning, smiling at me with his ridiculously handsome and youthful face. I shrug my shoulders at him, reading through the notes on the most recent Legislation from the French Ministry and highlighting – because I refuse to write out key parts without being a little bit of a muggle from time to time. "Something's bothering you, and I know you, so I can tell."

"Something is bothering me," I tell him. "I just have no idea what it is."

"How do you feel?"

"Anxious, annoyed, frustrated," I list off. "And sad." He laughs, assuming I'm joking I think. "There's nothing to be done about it. Just one of those gut things, and I'll know when I'm properly confronting whatever it is that's the key issue here."

"Fair enough."

Dickens is nice. Polite and handsome, and very intelligent. I went out for a drink with him once, but there wasn't a single spark between us, so we keep it professional. I would hate to have work and relationship all in one box. That would be completely exhausting. I think Dickens agrees.

A whole two months later and we're still getting requests for Draco's case file, and still getting global messages for him, being sent through us. I forward them to wherever he is working, but then it gets a little too much. I'm suddenly discussing the matter with Kingsley Shacklebolt, who is telling me decisively that I need to arrange a meeting with Draco and the Minister's involved for a public apology.

An hour of talk later, and I am walking purposefully to Draco Malfoy's office.

I knock on the door.

"Come in," calls a voice from inside. Male, it has to be him, right?

I open the door.

My entire body seems to curl in on itself. Draco Malfoy sitting, his legs stretched out from the small couch at the side of the room, reading. Draco Malfoy staring at me, open-mouthed. It doesn't really race through my mind to confront him, as my entire body burns with rage and sadness and aching, aching pain. Coursing through me. Painful attraction. Painful sadness. And just pain.

"You," I breathe, coughing. He stands, as if thinking to move towards me, crumpled against the doorframe of his office. "You did this. It's why you're sorry."

"Hermione?" he asks, moving closer.

"It hurts so much. What did you _do_?" I cry out, falling backwards against the wall and breathing heavily. Tears stream down my face, uncontrollably. " _What did you do to me_?" I demand.

"What does it feel like?"

"It feels like you broke my heart. Like you trod on my soul and put it in a blender. It feels like I'm going to be sick, and I'm hungry and I have cramp." I pause. "It feels like everything is being ripped out of me."

"I am so, so sorry."

"That's what you said before, in your little coward letter. Tell me why."

" _Hermione._ "

" _Draco_." It's unexpected, but I don't cringe from the name. "I don't understand. Explain, now."

"I love you."

I scowl. His face falls.

"I love you, and I took away your memories."

" _What the hell_?" I scream, glaring up at him. He doesn't dare to move any closer, but at least has the decency to look bad about it. "Why would you do that? I want them back!"

"They were going to kill you," he murmurs quietly, inching very slowly towards me. Gingerly, he comes to sit beside me, where the aching in my chest is causing my eyes to stream and my body to clench painfully to fight it. I glare are him. "I couldn't let that happen. I couldn't chance the threat." I shake my head at him, breathing a little slower now.

"Why not just explain that to me?" _If it's even true._

"I told you, I love you. I wasn't going to let someone like you get involved with someone like me, and to be hurt." He pauses. "They were hurting me to stop us from being together. They threatened your life, and that was too much." I frown at him in confusion. "Your life is far more valuable than mine."

"At least let me be the judge of that," I mutter. "Give me back my memories, Draco." I wince at the name that time, my habits coming back to me. It just sounds so wrong.

I'm not sure I can fully explain the extent of feelings which rush towards me in those next ten crucial moments to getting a small, and important, piece of my life back. Sure, there was heartache and worry, but this undeniable sense of love and fulfilment when I saw him for who I used to see him.

Of course, I slap him on the shoulder.

"How dare you not tell me!" I shout. "When you asked for frozen peas and said some bollocks about falling over or accidentally getting into fights! Bullshit! How dare you lie to me, Draco Malfoy!"

"I'm _sorry_."

"You said that already," I quip. We're quiet for several more of those little moments. His arm brushes mine. At least the horrible, cramping pain is gone, but electricity shoots through me at his touch. I can't help but wonder whether the relentless fight was over. Now that the documents are out, surely, they would stop? "Has it stopped, then?"

"Ever since the report came out," he replies, shrugging lightly and looking almost breathless.

"Do you think they'll come back, and hurt you again?"

"No. They have no reason to."

"Sometimes people are cruel without cause," I press.

"I just feel like that part of this is all over. The abuse, and the ignorance. People know me better now, I think. I don't get ignored, and I don't stumble home bleeding." I nod, like this is all good to hear and isn't completely making my heart hurt. When did I get so damn mushy?

"I'm sorry for getting you into this mess," I say.

"My god, it is not your fault," he laughs. "I'm a Malfoy. I only have my parents to blame."

"And that's why you chose to be someone different?"

"Yeah."

"I love you, Draco. I still do. I always have done."

He smiles.

"Are we okay, then?"

"Of course," I reply, leaning into him.

And absolutely forgetting about the Ministry meetings until later on in the day.

 **0-0-0-0**

 **Thanks for reading!**


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